Friday Trailer Rundown: Straight Outta Compton, Bloodline and more

The Friday Trailer Rundown gives us a chance to recap the most interesting and notable trailers for upcoming films, television shows or video games released this week, and circle back to catch any that might have been missed.

The decidedly Red Band trailer for the N.W.A. origin story / biopic Straight Outta Compton starts off with Dre and Cube cruising their old stomping grounds in a self-serving setup for what’s to come. Lots of justification and explanation and contextualization when really, guys, the people who are apt to be on board with this are going to be. The people who are going to dismiss it won’t be convinced. Once the real Dre and Cube get out of the way and let the trailer get properly started around the 1:10 mark, what we actually get to see is a hell of a lot better than what I expected of an N.W.A. movie. This looks like it’s light years beyond the horrible disservice of Biggie’s biopic, for instance. Still a bit hagiographic? Yes. But it looks like something actually made with care and concern for quality. Again, though, it’s more Red Band than a prom cummerbund, so if you’re reading this at work, switch to the BNC mobile site and watch more discreetly. Keep it professional.

Jauja is an odd, interesting looking flick starring Viggo Mortensen as a man who comes with his daughter to Argentina, where she promptly elopes with a local soldier. His search to find her ends up apparently getting him lost in the desert. See, if you had a son you wouldn’t have to worry about this. Instead you’d have to worry about him potentially bringing Viggo Mortensen’s daughter home and an angry Viggo Mortensen hunting you down. So… pretty much “different, but equal.”

The film has a unique look. That older-than-old-school black box frame surrounding the picture is not accidental or exclusive to the movie’s trailer. This is what the final product is going to look like. At times it almost looks as though we’re watching an old, no-frills documentary. But then by the end of the trailer we seem to be approaching some stark, existential horror elements. It adds up to Jauja being one of the more arresting small film trailers to come out in some time.

The only reason why I’m including the trailer for Aloha here is because it looks like Cameron Crowe is just remaking Elizabethtown with new actors and a slightly different setting. And as far as I can recall, Elizabethtown failed on nearly every front. Critically, commercially, creatively, it did a lot of things wrong. It should have been titled Meaningless Romantic Ennui: The Motion Picture. This looks no better. The tagline is “Sometimes you have to say GOODBYE before you can say HELLO” for God’s sake. “Get it? Because the word ‘aloha’ means both goodbye and hel–” shut your mouth. Go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.

On to a tagline that doesn’t look like someone wrote it at half past the last second, “We’re not bad people, but we did a bad thing,” is the simple, ominous hook to the new Netflix original series Bloodline. By the end of the trailer, our handsome, seemingly wholesome protagonist / county sheriff is asking that we not judge his prestigious family for whatever “bad thing” they end up doing. Whatever it is, it surely has to do with the bad seed son played by Ben Mendelsohn who, based on his roles in Animal Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises, and Killing Them Softly, is perfect for the role of “Guy Who Ruins Everything for Everybody Else.” Netflix originals are a bit hit-or-miss, but this has the cast, premise and look to be flat out fantastic. Here’s hoping it lives up.

J. Compton is an author whose stories have appeared in Pseudopod, Arkham Tales, Fantasy Scroll Magazine and other publications. As co-host of the BNC he hopes you enjoy the site and only asks that you please remember to use coasters.